


We're Not Ever Getting Older

by ainewrites



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Rogue One Spoilers, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9782915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainewrites/pseuds/ainewrites
Summary: Barely anyone survives. But they do. Somehow.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I read something about how people wished Cassian and Jyn survived, because then they could have been Rey's parents, and I thought that they actually made a lot of sense because it would have been a good way to tie everyone together. But they're dead, so in this 'fic, they're not. 
> 
> This is canon-compliant, even though, y'know, they're not dead. And I'm pretty sure I spelled everything right but I'm not positive so please don't yell at me if Lah'mu is spelled Luea'mo or something.

Barely anyone survives. But they do. Somehow. Somehow, they manage to stumble from the elevator, bleeding and broken, to a ship that somehow survived the explosions. Somehow, they get on board. And, somehow, they fly.

 

-

Jyn had entered random coordinates, and so they float in space, exhausted and bleeding and alive. Jyn rests her head on the wall, chest tight. She doesn't know if it's from grief or fear or pain or the lingering after effects of adrenaline, but she doesn't really care right now.

Cassian's breathing is wheezy and shallow, and blood soaks through his coat, through the bandages Jyn had hastily wrapped around him to try and prevent him from bleeding out onto the cargo ship's floor. She doesn't know how he's still alive. That fall should have killed him, even if the blaster shot didn't. But here he was. He turns his head, and meets her eyes.

"What do we do?" Jyn whispers. It's less a question for him and more one for herself, but he answers it anyways.

"We contact Mon Mothma or Draven and we see who's still alive." Cassian tries to push himself up as he speaks, but he winces and lays back down.

"We go back." Jyn looks out the window, at the cold glow of the stars, at the distant shape of some far-off planet, and isn't sure why those words cause a sinking in her stomach.

"Or we could not go back," Cassian says, quietly, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Jyn turns away from the stars outside and looks at him. He looks so, so tired.

"We could not go back," he repeats, and Jyn suddenly remembers he's been in the resistance since he was six. She remembers that it is very likely that he lost all his friends today. But mostly, she remembers he signed up for what he knew was a suicide mission. She remembers what he looked like, when he saw the Death Star's laser forming. How he didn't look scared or angry, just...accepting. Almost peaceful.

Jyn nods.

 

-

 

It's Mothma who gets the hologram, sent via the most run-down droid she's ever seen. The glitchy blue forms of Jyn and Cassian, beaten and bloody and in obvious pain, stare at her.

They tell her they're alive, they're injured but alive. They tell her that they support the resistance, but they can't be a part of it, not anymore. They tell her they're not coming back.

But they also tell her that if she- or anyone in the resistance -needs to contact them, they've added a way to do it. 

Just before the hologram fades, Jyn adds, "but only for end of the galaxy as we know it, okay?"

Mothma can't help but smile.

-

Cassian doesn't know how long he spends submerged in bacta. It could have been days, weeks, or only a couple of hours. All he knows is that when he wakes up, Jyn is sitting next to his bed.

She tells him he had a fractured spine, a concussion, extreme blood-loss, but somehow managed to escape without any punctured organs.

The med-droid watches them silently, as Cassian carefully pulls on clean clothes, his body aching and protesting, but gloriously functional.

Jyn pays the doctor in the way out (because of course Jyn knows a black-market doctor with an illegal bacta tank), and they limp their way back up onto the ship.

Cassian settles himself into the captain's seat, wincing at the throbbing soreness, and turns to Jyn.

"Where do you want to go?" He asks, the taste of absolute freedom in the sentence sweet on his tongue.

She smiles, weary eyes lighting up. "Everywhere."

-

The news comes whispered, with eyes glancing up at the Empire's flags fluttering around the city. The Death Star, the world destroyer, has been destroyed. People ache to celebrate, but they can't, not on an Empire run planet.

Jyn and Cassian do, though. With glasses of alcohol so strong they can barely choke them down, and later, on the ship, in private, with something else.

Cassian can't help thinking how bittersweet the kisses are, how hesitant and scared the both of them are. They've both lost so much, and they don't want to lose each other, too. And to lose each other because of these kisses would be too painful for either of them.

But still, they kiss. And when they half-fall, half-stumble onto the bed, there's a pass in the awkward, fumbly movements caused by still-hurting, still-healing bodies. 

They breathe, and look at each other, and Cassian notices speckles of brown in Jyn's otherwise green eyes.

"Is this okay?" 

Later, he would be unsure who breathed those words, who whispered the answering "of course". But for now, it didn't matter, because right now it was just him and Jyn, and they were the only ones in the galaxy that mattered.

-

Jyn has nightmares, sometimes. They were the most predominant in the days following Scarif, occurring every time she closed her eyes. but even as that day fades behind weeks and months and years, they still haunt her.

K-2, as lifeless as a broken doll. Bodhi, vanishing behind a wave of fire. Baze and Chirrut, ripped apart by blaster bolts. Her father, lying on that platform, in pain and dying. Herself, watching the shock wave roll closer and closer, and unable to move, unable to get away.

But mostly, they're of Cassian. Cassian, bleeding, Cassian, falling, Cassian, dying in her arms.

She wakes up, shaking and crying, and Cassian holds her close because he knows, he understands.

Because he gets them, too, but about her.

-

It takes a couple of years, but, eventually, the Empire is defeated. Jyn and Cassian are on Hosnian Prime when the news comes.

People flood the streets, cries of relief, of happiness, of joy, echoing through the buildings. Friends, family, strangers embrace in the streets, and, as the night grows dark, people dance.

Cassian and Jyn spin through the streets, envelopes as easily into the festivities as if they had lived in this community their entire life. For the first time in years, Cassian feels light, and utterly happy.

Jyn, clutching his hands as they dance, clumsily and as untalented as people could possibly be, laughs. 

She has her hair in a braid and someone tucked a red flower into it, and for the first time since he met her, she seems joyful. There is no bitter edge to her laugh, no downward tilt to her smile. 

Cassian loves this girl, and he needs her. Needs her like he needs water, like he needs food, like he needs air. He can't imagine a life without her, and he tells her this.

In answer, she kisses him.

-

They don't get married, exactly. There's no one to perform a ceremony, no witnesses, no toasts. 

But anyone could tell, by the way they look at each other, that they belong together, and to one another.

And, official marriage document or not, that's not something that can be changed.

-  
A life of going planet to planet leaves for a lot of time in space, and so Cassian and Jyn talk.

Jyn tells Cassian about her childhood on Lah'mu. She tells him about how she can still remember how it smelled first thing in the morning, the way the dark, rich dirt felt beneath her hands and between her fingers, to the way the wind sounded as it whispered through the tall, green stalks.

And in turn, Cassian tells her about his childhood in the resistance. About his easy ability to fix the droids and natural intelligence caused him to quickly get more and more important jobs, even as a small child. He tells her about his first ships and his first missions, and she eats up his words eagerly, as if they were the only thing that could sustain her.

She finds out he never learned to cook, outside of adding water to the rations kept in all resistance ships, and so she teaches him the dishes her mother and father taught to her. The memories of them in the kitchen are one of the few that have stayed sharp in her mind.

He teaches her the home language of Fest, how it was before the Empire came in and imposed Basic on everyone. She loves the soft, flowing sounds of the language, almost as much as he does. He tells her that he's not sure how he still remembers how to speak it, but he does, and losing the ability would be like losing a bit of himself.

Cassian doesn't need to explain it to her. She understands.

-

Cassian sees them, once. He had only met Princess Organa once or twice, years ago, and had only heard of her newly-found twin brother and the space pirate with the flying hunk of garage he called a ship. 

But still, he recognizes her, across the crowd. He's not sure what's she's doing in Naboo, and spends a few seconds wondering, before chastising himself for focusing on such a small detail.

As he goes to turn away, she turns around, and they make eye contact across the crowd. They stare at each other, for a few seconds, her three traveling companies (two men who are probably her twin and the pirate, and a Wookiee, for whatever reason) oblivious to her distraction.

It has been eighteen years since he left the resistance. She should not know him, not recognize him. 

But she does. She smiles at him, her head tilted slightly to one side, a twinkle of knowing in her eye, and he knows she does.

He feels a hand slip into his own and he looks down to see Jyn, who glances around curiously. 

"What are you doing?"

Cassian looks up, searching for the princess, but she has slipped into the crowd, and he cannot see her. Shaking his head slightly, he slings his arm over Jyn's shoulder, so their entitled fingers are settled against her chest and she is pressed against his side.

"Nothing," he says, and she smiles up at him.

-

At first, Jyn doesn't think it's possible. She's too old for it to happen, if it were to happen, it would have happened already, she hasn't had any symptoms except the one, and it could just be her body's natural response to getting older.

Her mind spins excuses, even as she makes them to slip into the twilight streets of Corellia. It takes only a few minutes and a few galactic credits to purchase what she needs, and only a few more to confirm what she already knew was true. 

She trudges back to the ship, hands shoved deep in pockets. She stopped counting her birthdays long ago, but now, she starts tallying years up in her head, and she thinks she's probably 44 or 45, and that seems old. Too old.

She enters the ship and goes to find Cassian.

He's sitting in the captain's chair, hair ruffled and messy like he just got out of bed, even though she knows he's been up for hours. He spins to see her and smiles.

"I'm pregnant." She forces the words out, not quite meeting his eyes. She watches his face go slack with shock, and she waits for him to be angry. 

But instead he leaps from his chair and kisses her. 

-

They talk about names one night, lying next to each other in their bed.

They wonder if they should name the baby after the lives lost too soon, so long ago. They almost decide on Rook for a boy and Kay for a girl, but those names don't feel right, in a way Jyn can't explain.

They decide to talk about it later. They never do.

-

 

They go to a hospital on Hosnian Prime. Cassian tries not to notice the way the Jyn, tough, resistant, proud Jyn, whimpers in pain as she sits slowly down onto the hospital bed they assigned to her. Jyn, who he's never heard whimper before, not even in the midst of a nightmare.

Her pregnancy had been startling easy, almost as if the universe had been apologizing for the hardships in their past. But it was apparently attempting to make up that lost cruelty, because Jyn's labor was long, and hard, and painful.

Cassian remembers every minute of it, but it's the last part he remembers the most. Jyn, screaming in pain and crushing the bones in his fingers to dust. A med-droid, cooing words of useless comfort, that only serves to make a Jyn angry.

And, finally, a sharp cry, Jyn collapsing back, equal parts exhausted and smug, and a med-droid depositing a tiny, pink bundle right into her arms.

Cassian cries. Jyn doesn't, just takes in her newborn daughter. And when the med-droids have finally, finally left the room, Jyn passes the now sleeping baby into Cassian's arms.

He asks about a name. Jyn settles back into the pillows, wincing slightly as she does. 

"Rey."

Rey. A combination of two names, after two people (or, he admits, a person and a droid), but at the same time, it's her own name, and she can grow into it whichever way she likes, without feeling like she borrowed it from someone else.

He cradles his daughter close. Rey. Tiny, perfect, and innocent. And he swears to keep her that way as long as he can.

-

In the end, they decide to go to Lah'mu. A life of planet-hopping is one not suited to a newborn, and Jyn and Cassian had been doing it a very long time.

Jyn had asked Cassian if he wanted to go to Fest, but he had shaken his head, and said he had little to no memories of the planet, and that he had wanted to see Lah'mu since he first heard Jyn describe it. And so they go.

When Jyn first steps off the ship, she’s greeted by a smell almost-forgotten, a wind tangling her hair and caressing her cheek. She breathes deep, and remembers that this is home.

She hears a burbling laugh behind her and turns, to see Rey, one hand fisted in Cassian’s shirt, laughing as the long strands of grass tickle her other, grabbing hand. Cassian laughs, too, turning around in wide-eyed happiness.

No, Jyn reminds herself. That is home. They are home.

-

Rey is a serious little girl, who inherited her father’s knack for machines. At age six, she’s already tinkering with the little machines around the house, and sometimes she evens puts them back together after she’s taken them apart. 

Sometimes, Cassian has to touch her, lay a hand on her head while she’s working to remind himself that this is real, that this is not a dream, as he sometimes fears it is. Outside the window, the tiny, tiny Lah’mu settlement is full of cheerful people and, beyond that, is a sea of green. 

He scoops up Rey, despite her protests (she was busy taking apart the little tool that allowed them to change the temperature in the house), and goes to find Jyn. 

She’s sitting on their porch, a cup of caf in her hand. She turns and smiles, and Cassian sits next to her, and Rey clambers out of his lap and into hers, where she sits, watching a little green bug climb up one of the potted flowers.

Here they are safe. Here they are happy.

Of course, it couldn’t last.  
-

Rey is eight when the comm, long ago thought forgotten, blinks red. It has been years upon years since Scarif, since they left the resistance, and now, Mon Mothma, or whoever took Mon Mothma’s place, is contacting them. Jyn and Cassian meet each other’s eyes with wide stares, then shoo Rey outside to play with the settlement’s other children.

The comm opens. And Princess Leia Organa appears, in glitchy, flickering blue.

-

All Jyn ever wanted for her daughter was to live in a galaxy without war, without suffering. She knows Cassian feels the same, which is why they agree to do it. Which is why they agree to join the resistance again. Which is why they agree to take Rey to Jakku.

She’ll be with a family that has been in the resistance since before Darth Vader and the Death Star, since the first inklings that the Empire was beginning to take over the Republic. They are nice people, good people. 

So why does Jyn feel so, so guilty? 

The resistance pilot who picked them opens the door to the ship, revealing miles upon miles of colorless sand. Rey looks around curiously, kicking it with her boots. Jyn hates Jakku, hates the sand, hates what she’s about to do. 

She grips Rey tight, so tight that Rey squirms in protest. She can feel tears streaking down her cheeks when she pulls away, quickly drying in the sun.

“Goodbye,” She chokes out, then she’s back on the ship with the door closed and she can see Rey screaming, fighting to get to her parents, get to Jyn and Cassian.

Her face is hot and wet with tears. Cassian is crying, too.

The pilot is silent before saying, “She’s young. She’ll forget the green.”

That just makes Jyn cry harder.

-

The rebel base feels the same, but different. Different planet, different people, but some rush, same layout, same smell, even, and it makes him equal parts angry and hopeful, like he just walked through a door into his childhood home.

Rey. The thought of her makes his heart ache. But, he tells himself, as he threads through people, toward where he knows he can find her, toward where he knows he will be told what to do, this will only take a year, maybe two, then we can go back. Then we can go back and get her.

He sees her, standing in front of a screen. She turns, and he dips his head respectively. 

“General.”

General Leia Organa smiles.

-

Eleven years. 

It had been eleven years since Jyn and Cassian had seen Rey. She would be nineteen now, a young woman, no longer the tiny girl they left on Jakku. 

Jyn’s heart hangs heavy with guilt, every single day, but she gets through it by telling herself that she is doing this for Rey, doing this so Rey has a future in a galaxy that is good and just, not overrun by the Empire like during Jyn’s childhood.

She reaches her hand out to Cassian, and he grabs it, holding it tightly. Rey is on that ship, the one that’s docking. Han Solo’s ship. 

It will have been eleven years since they have seen their daughter. It will have been forty-four years since Scarif, since the Death Star.

But Jyn knows with an absolute, utter certainty, that the minute that Rey is here, and back with her, and back with Cassian, they will finally, finally, be home.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Closer by The Chainsmokers.


End file.
